


the department manual didn't cover you

by boarsnsmores



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Shenanigans, So done, That's it that's the plot, but mostly regret, mulan is done, there's adventure in here somewhere too, this probably qualitifes as a crack fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9058549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boarsnsmores/pseuds/boarsnsmores
Summary: An AU where there’s a B-team and they go on adventures.It’s actually just Mulan because Regina never approved the new budget for the Sheriff’s Department.“Why do you need a rocket launcher?”  Regina had asked, as if she weren’t pseudo-mayor for a town consistently plagued with literal other-realm issues and that shouldn’t even exist in the first place. Then she rejected the budget without reading the rest of it.So it’s just Mulan and it’s also just one adventure but with Ruby to her left and Elsa to her right, it’s the longest damn adventure she’s ever had to suffer through.So really, an AU where there’s a B-team and they go on adventures.(This isn't even remotely canon. Come for the shenanigans, stay for the accidental retelling of 'The Snow Queen')





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Merr chrismas](http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/875649-christmas-day), Nelly. I was going to write something like this for our anniversary, but shit happened which you know because you were there. Anyway, surprise!
> 
> Sorry I was definitely hungover when I wrote this and almost certainly still drunk who really knows. You haven't lived until you've tried to understand the plot of S4 while both drunk and hungover.
> 
> I'm also sorry that you're trapped in rarepair hell with these two even though I'm still not sure how you ended up in that raft but I vaguely remember it being my fault. So here, have some rarepair nonsense.

She supposes that it’s appropriate that the sheriff of a magical town spend most of her time fending off magical forces that threaten to destroy the town, as their ilk are wont to do. The sheriff also spends taxpayer time on personal matters, but Mulan adamantly refuses to think about that.

And so she is left alone in this office, manning the phone line in case another cat gets stuck in a tree.

(There was also an anaconda once and Mulan cannot spare the sanity to even begin trying to comprehend this insane town.)

All things considered, Storybrooke is a slow town (with the occasional flare-up of imminent doom) where Mulan has too much time to brood.

Ruby’s words, not her’s. Which, speaking of-

“Mulan!” Ruby cries as she flings herself into the office.

“Ruby.” Mulan grunts out.

“Way to make a girl feel welcome.” Ruby says, dumping a grease-laden bag onto Mulan’s once-impeccable pile of paperwork. The top sheet will be ruined with grease but Mulan has made sure to top off her piles with Emma’s illegible and disposable copies ever since Ruby started visiting regularly.

Some things in this town, one cannot change, only attempt to survive. The amount of grease being used at Granny’s being one of them. Ruby’s penchant to knock over Mulan’s paperwork another. The alarming number of times Ruby has said ‘Mulan, hold my beer’. Ruby, in general.

Mulan sighs into her burger.

“What’re you thinking about?” Ruby asks, mouth full. Mulan is graced with a vision of half-chewed seafood.

(“Get it, Mulan? Seafood? See? See food! It’s a pun. Laugh, woman.”)

Mulan sighs again. She’s about to answer when the phone rings.

“Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Mulan speaking.” She says into the phone, curtly and crisply because she swallows her food before speaking.

“Hey, gonna need you out here.” Emma says. Her voice is tinny and barely filters through the static. It makes Mulan suspicious – Storybrooke’s connection is notoriously poor, but not normally this poor.

“Something wrong?” She asks.

“Uh. Yeah, I’d say this giant unmelting ice wall classifies.” Emma confirms.

Just another day in a magical town that shouldn’t exist, Mulan thinks. She does not voice this. Instead, “Location?”

“Town line. Only road out of here.”

“10-4. ETA 10.”

“What?”

Mulan remembers the pristine condition of the SOP manual and sighs, “I’m on my way. Ten minutes.”

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place? See you here.”

“Gotta head out?” Ruby asks her through another mouthful of food.

“Yes.” Mulan tells her, “Police business. I’m afraid I can’t say anything else until we know more.”

Ruby shrugs and checks her phone, “Snow texted me that there’s a giant ice wall. Have fun with that.”

Mulan briefly considers if she can beat department policy into everyone in a literal sense and grabs the keys to the department vehicle off the hook.

“Wear a jacket!” Ruby calls out after her.

She will not. That’ll show them, she thinks petulantly.

\---

She should have worn a jacket. When Emma had told her ‘ice wall’, she was expecting something like some ice hurdles or maybe a person-tall ice wall across the road.

‘Giant unmelting ice wall’ does an injustice to this ice wall which stretches so far she can’t see its end and towers so high she must crane her head up uncomfortably to see where it touches the sky.

“What happens when this thing inevitably topples?” She asks Emma, who makes a face that makes it seem like she hadn’t considered the option.

“Fuck.” Emma curses. Because she hadn’t considered the option. “Okay, well, this is obviously a magically constructed wall. So, we’re going to find the person who made it and get them to magically bring it down without taking out half the wilderness with it. That was already the plan, but now it’s doubly the plan.”

Mulan edges closer to examine the wall. She can see vapor condensing around it. She tries to run her hand over it but her hand gets caught almost immediately. She wrenches it away before the ice can burn her. To her right, Emma’s car is parked uncomfortably close to the wall.

“Emma. How long have you been out here?” She asks.

Emma thinks, “An hour? We were looking for the culprit but haven’t found anything. I figured we’d bring you in to see if you’d have any more luck. This is probably a little more important than cats in trees.”

Mulan is inclined to agree. “Where did you park your car?” She asks.

Emma looks confused, “Right there? You must have seen it-” Then she gets it. “Oh, fuck.” She says.

Mulan is also inclined to agree with that. “Not only is this wall not melting, it’s growing.”

\---

The phone lines have finally given up on life and Emma is unable to reach Regina as a result. Emma points Mulan left because “I already took the right side” and then heads off to find Regina, who will probably know what to do.

Mulan heads right first anyway. All things must end, even this seemingly unending wall of ice. Maybe she will find answers there. She moves briskly, it wouldn’t do to get caught lost in the woods without a jacket when the sun sets.

She really should have brought that jacket.

Whatever Mulan expected to find, it was not

  1. the end of the wall so quickly
  2. a person at the end of the wall
  3. the person with her hands up, ice crystallizing around her to build the wall
  4. with magic, in case that wasn’t clear. She’s building the wall with magic



Mulan reaches for her sword, the one she’s carried faithfully for all these years -

and instead gets her department-issue gun because “You can’t carry a magic-slicing sword around Storybrooke, Mulan. It’s weird.”

She curses silently and vows to ignore Emma from now on. The woman turns to face her, alarmed.

Not silently enough, it would seem.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to stop building a wall with your magic and come with me.” Mulan says. She cannot believe these words in that order are coming out of her mouth. Someone is going to have to revise the SOP manual to accommodate these kinds of incidents and it’s probably going to have to be her if she survives this. She will authorize swords as a department-sanctioned weapon.

The woman draws herself up to her full height as she turns to face Mulan proper. She does it very regally. Mulan guesses queen. There shouldn’t be any in Storybrooke, not anymore, but because this is Storybrooke, she isn’t going to waste energy on being surprised.

“I am Queen Elsa.”

Mulan bites back a sigh. She’s also going to guess that Queen Elsa wants something and is using the town as leverage until she gets it.

“And until I find my sister, Anna, no one is leaving.”

Mulan hates being right, sometimes.


End file.
